Ethnicity-Based Jury Nullification

Jury nullification can be understood as a constitutional doctrine that allows juries to acquit criminal defendants who do not deserve punishment even though they are technically guilty. The jury nullifies a law, which is assumed as morally wrong or incorrectly applied to the defendant whose destiny is charged with deciding (Linder, 2001). In this paper, I will explain how ethnicity influences courtroom proceedings and judicial practices. I will also summarize the arguments for and against ethnicity-based jury nullification including contemporary examples. At the end of the paper, I will try to come to a conclusion by choosing a position for or against it.

In today’s modern society, where we have come far technologically, ethnicity still plays an important role on courtroom proceedings and judicial practices. People are usually judged on the basis of race or ethnicity they belong to. People, who are different in colour, appearance or belonging from a different area or following a different practise than usual are generally stereotyped. Psychology plays an important role here where the racial and ethnic biasness affect individuals leading to in group favouritism and out group derogation (Ward, Farrell, & Rousseau, 2009). This disparity still stands as a concern leading to unprofessional or unfair acts in the courtroom proceedings and judicial practices. Differences of a common focus on individual level obscures the relative distribution of racial group power and influence specific contexts of social control, which limits understanding of contextual significance of increased but varying patterns of diversity among police, court, and other criminal justice decision makers (Ward, Farrell, & Rousseau, 2009)

Let me discuss few of the arguments that support jury nullification:

1. This may be needed to keep check and balance in case when the government goes tyrannical. This gives Juries the power to nullify the cases where the prosecution has been done on...